I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. ~Hunter S. Thompson
|
| Designed by: |
| Anna Johnson at Heyde Center |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by John Abbott | |||
| Tuesday, 14 June 2011 06:17 | |||
|
It was a very small crowd of fans in the Heyde Center tonight for the return of Anna Johnson. It wasn't a huge surprise the crowd was so small. Anna had just been in town a few weeks ago. It was a week night, end of school year for families with Hillcrest kids. A day so busy I posted on my own Facebook to remind myself to attend. I was ever so glad I did. I will gripe a little here and there, but all in all I am very happy. Anna's new songs are great! I am very happy with each of her new songs.
A few weeks ago I was in Chicago, sent there by my work, All Heil IT. I was there learning some new technology, and listening to some blues. And it was an amazing good trip on both accounts. But, if there was a little bit of a dark lining, by being in Chicago I missed Anna Johnson playing here in her home town at Chi High Auditorium. So this night's concert was a bit of a makeup for that loss.
Anna's musical style has changed. The sad breakup songs are for the most part gone from Anna's new work. The new love-lost songs, contain not the same heartbreak. It seemed to me the outlook change of moving from late adolescence to adulthood, the coming into ones self. Her new breakup song seemed to have the aire of "we might split up but I will go on" with the confidence of a woman, instead of the end of the world of a high school girl. Lyrically, her songs are snappier and stick in your head better. And all of her new work capitalized on she and Julia using their ability to harmonize. The Blonde was over the night after the show, doing a new dye job on The Wife's hair, and we were listening to what I had recorded at the show. She said "I love it when performers use their voices like instruments", in referring to a drawn out vocal harmony section. I agree, and thought it aptly described the new style.
Anna Johnson on stage with her band at the Heyde Center. Jun 2011
What I noticed very profoundly, it was a much different Anna Johnson than the one I saw on stage a year ago. Anna looked older, wiser more experienced than the girl we saw a year ago. I think she has lived a lot in this past year. Some of it good, some of it bad. It is a shame to see some of that stage innocence to have worn off, but it had to happen. I certainly wish her nothing but the best.
It was not just Anna who had changed either. Julia continues to become more beautiful, developing musically, playing and singing better each time I hear the band. She always leaves me wishing for more. I am not talking Elvis either. She has a moderate length, very nice violin solo in the song (I think titled) Where is Home. Vocally you can hear her coming out more in what is now my near all time favorite Anna Johnson song, the new, Road, Oh Road. But, never for a moment is she more than backup vocals. …And I say, that's a shame.
Julia Johnson on stage with the Anna Johnson band at the Heyde Center
I liked the addition of David Mitchell and his background plinking. It was very nice, this underlying flow of note complexity. It suited Anna's music very well, and fit in perfectly. At the Heyde Center, the drums were a little over powering. I don't think it was the drummers fault. Mixed performance such as this, amplified as the guitars were and acoustic as the drums were, it isn't a good venue to sit in the front row. The amplified music comes out of speakers above the stage pointed at the balcony and the drummer is right in front of us. In my backseat driver's opinion, the venue and crowd size called for portable amps plugged into their guitars. The band can buy the sound guys a beer and let them just enjoy the show. All of this grousing really amounts to "I missed the acoustics of the Chi High auditorium". Heyde center isn't the best for any amplified music. I feel like the sound there goes over my head. I know my video camera didn't get much. Maybe it sounds great in the balcony where the sound guy sits, but my eyes aren't so good any more. I can't sit up there. And, the other thing, when I walk into the venue and there are front-row seats available because everyone is too shy to sit in the front --well, I just gotta take those seats. So the sound where I was sitting wasn't really premo. It is just the acoustics of the place that you trade for a good view.
The performance was not always trouble free. During the first set, Anna had a couple of episodes of "I have sung this song a million times ….what are the words again?" One was pretty much unrecoverable and they had to move on. Life of a band, you don't get much sleep. The songs from the Anna archive I really wanted to hear sounded great.
Outted as a meany from on stage, I was taken to public task for comments I made several years back, the first time I saw the two sister's on stage. Coincidentally, at the Foreign Five the same coffeeshop I am sitting in right now, drinking coffee and writing this. As I remember the article, I commented that Anna looked so outwardly happy, so laughing, so twinkly-eyed and yet she could sing such heart wrenchingly sad music. It was just amazing to me. I stand by what I said because It still is! I really loved that phase of Anna's music, I just couldn't figure out how she could make such music come out of her person.
So it was a great show. I did love every minute of it. I hope that comes out even through my bitching around.
So here was a really great highlight of the week, but then it took a turn. It became a time for a sad, sad song for me. As I put the finishing touches on this article, I got word that my friend, Sara Hawkins, from my daughter's 4-H club died this morning. She was in town, in her van, waiting for a store to open. She had a heart attack and died. She was 43.
Sara was the first of the 4-H moms inner circle to cross the border and talk to the scary guy with a pony tail, leather and black shades. We had become friends over the years. I was her co-pilot on a 4-H trip to House on the Rock last year. Those were a few great hours of conversation. As we talked, and she talked on her cell phone, juggling not only her life, her family's life, and the section of the farming enterprise for which she was responsible; But also the lives of several mexican families, the farms migrant workers' lives as well. As we travelled, I learned a popular worker had been fired the previous day, and seeds of rebellion had to be defused. I learned about growing pumpkins, because one of her other ventures was Hawkin's Hallow, a popular Chippewa Falls fall-time destination. And all of this, handled as punctuation between our exchanged life stories. It was a great trip and will always be my memory of her.
Two weeks ago Sara gave me a lift in her van from a retirement home, where we were helping our 4-H kids build some raised garden beds, back to my house. Our battery operated drills had run dry and I to pick up some extension cords, (an item that is very hard for me to carry on my motorcycle.) It was a hard working day as we rushed to get done with our project before a thunderstorm struck. I had too little time on site to talk to my friend. So I am glad I had one last errand in the copilots seat.
======
So time passes. And I haven't actually posted this review. Part of it was, I wanted to wait until after the funeral, and see if I had any last words on Sara. I really don't. It was a sad event. I can say no more. And, I have to admit, I also I needed some time to decide how bad I felt about tacking a eulogy on to the review of such a pleasant show by a wonderful musician and her band. This past week I have been on vacation. Rebuilding and re-painting a front porch on my house. I have had time to think. I don't have anything to tie these two desperate events together. No moral. No enlightenment. But the fact is, they are tied. I am happy for Anna, and I wish her well with her new music. And, I am sad to have lost a friend. It is so, that life goes.
|
|||
| Last Updated on Tuesday, 14 June 2011 07:12 |
